In 1989 Spike Lee directed one of my all time favourite movies called Do the Right Thing. This movie was set in one specific Brooklyn neighbourhood on the hottest day of the summer. The action throughout the entire film is restricted to one city block, the people living there, the business owners and their employees who work there and finally, to the NYPD officers who only seem to be there whenever there is trouble. Ninety-five percent of the people who live on this block are black. However, none of the business owners nor police officers are black. As the movie unfolds, the temperature outside becomes oppressive. Soon enough, tempers flare as racial tensions build to the point of exploding. One of the main grievances aired by the black characters in this movie is lack of cultural acknowledgement. The movie begins with Samuel L. Jackson as a radio DJ playing the powerful, forceful beats and words of “Fight the Power” by the legendary Hip Hop group Public Enemy. There is one line from this song in particular that has always stood out for me and which holds great importance for this movie. It is a verse that begins by invoking the names of two great white cultural heroes, Elvis and John Wayne and counters with the line “Most of my heroes don’t appear on no stamps”. Cultural representation is important. It just is. When there is a systemic, organized, deeply entrenched societal mechanism in place that denies whole cultures the chance to see themselves represented proudly, then the message being given is that the existence of that cultural group doesn’t matter. Furthermore, the existence of the individual members of that group don’t matter, either. To prove my point, I want you to stop and watch a scene from Do the Right Thing. This scene is set in an Italian pizzeria that has operated on that block for a long time. The owner is a man named Sal who is played by Danny Aiello. Cultural representation matters to Aiello’s character, Sal. But, as you shall see, he uses cultural representation as a power strategy to perpetuate the message that only certain cultural groups really matter. This one scene is a microcosm of how racism exists in this one Brooklyn neighbourhood, as well as in the rest of the world. Please watch this clip by clicking here now. ***NSFW due to profane language.
As WWI began, the area of New York City that is known as Harlem had a different demographic makeup than it came to have throughout most of the rest of the century. Back then, the area north of Central Park was home to a population that was mostly white and Jewish. In 1914, to be exact, a man named Sidney Cohen opened a burlesque theatre in the place where the Apollo Theatre now stands. Because of racial segregation laws that existed at the time, Hurtig and Seamon’s New Burlesque Theatre (as it was called) prohibited people of colour from attending and from performing inside the walls of the theatre. Burlesque shows remained the order of the day all the way until the start of the 1930s, when new mayor Fiorello La Guardia acted to “clean up” New York City by shutting down burlesque performance spaces. In 1934, Mr. Cohen reopened the theatre under a new name called The 125th Street Apollo Theatre. Not only did Cohen change the programming offered at his theatre because of Mayor La Guardia’s edict, he was also aware of the changing demographic nature of Harlem. The white, Jewish population was leaving the area and moving further downtown. In their place, African Americans began moving into the area. Affordable housing initiatives made it possible to live in NYC, even if the median salaries of African Americans tended to be lower than those of white workers. As a consequence of this demographic change that was taking place all around the neighbourhoods where the theatre sat, Sidney Cohen began to offer programming that focussed more on revue-style shows that offered singing and dancing and comedy and short skits. While it is technically accurate to describe the building (that became known simply as The Apollo Theatre) as an entertainment and Arts performance space, the truth is that The Apollo Theatre evolved into being much, much more than that. The Apollo Theatre became the showplace for genres of music such as Jazz, Blues, Bebop, Gospel, Soul and R&B…genres that were referred to by many as being “black music”. The theatre’s stage became a safe place for performers of colour to perform. Many black performers appeared at the Apollo Theatre because, unlike a majority of other performing arts venues in America, the Apollo Theatre not only welcomed them on its stage but celebrated the great skill of these performers and gave them a safe place to be. As important as anything else was the fact that the Apollo Theatre opened its doors to audiences of colour. The theatre was a classy and well appointed venue where black audiences could come to a show in a safe setting and see performers who looked and sounded exactly like they did. It was cultural representation put into practice. Sometimes a theatre is just another bricks and mortar building. But the Apollo Theatre quickly became much more than that. It became known as the cultural soul of America. The Apollo Theatre has earned this designation honestly.
Right from the very first moments that the new 125th Street Apollo Theatre opened its doors in 1934, efforts have been consistently made to showcase performers of colour. The initial performers were jazz musicians such as Benny Carter and his Orchestra. Bill “Mr. Bojangles” Robinson appeared not long after and put on displays of dancing for an adoring crowd. However, the most popular bit of programming there began in 1934 (and which continues to this day). It was something called Amateur Night. The purpose of Amateur Night was to provide amateur black performers with the opportunity to perform in a safe place on a public stage before a discerning audience of real people who didn’t suffer fools lightly. If a performer measured up, then the audience would shower them with applause. If a performer was on the lower side of competent, then they would be booed off the stage. Winners of Amateur Night at the Apollo Theatre would win a $25 cash prize, along with an invitation for a return engagement at a future date. The list of those who have been winners on Amateur Night is extraordinary! The very first winner was a young woman who went by the name of Ella Fitzgerald. Subsequent winners included luminaries such as Sarah Vaughn, Pearl Bailey, Dionne Warwick and James Brown.
When network television programming began in the 1950s, a TV show was developed that was called Showtime at the Apollo. This show basically served to televise the Amateur Night festivities as they took place inside the theatre. Performers who won during the televised Amateur Night shows included Ronnie Spector, Gladys Knight and a young man named Jimi Hendrix. It is said that Showtime at the Apollo, along with Soul Train, were the two TV shows that helped to popularize black music and black performers and made the presence of both more welcome across America in the decades that followed.
In the early 1960s, two great cultural vehicles for black performers joined forces when the “Motortown Revue” from Detroit appeared at The Apollo Theatre. Motown legends such as Little Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Commodores and The Four Tops all graced the stage of the Apollo Theatre for the first time. The 1960s also saw the birth of a phenomenon known as the Live at the Apollo record albums. The most famous of these were two albums recorded by the man himself, James Brown.
The 1970s saw some troubled times come to the Apollo Theatre and to Harlem, in general. The economy was in decline. New York City experienced a period of visible poverty, lawlessness and urban decay. The Apollo Theatre closed its doors for a period of time, not opening again until the 1980s.
In the decades that have followed, the cultural importance of the Apollo Theatre has been acknowledged and the building has become a protected heritage structure. The list of black performers who played on the stage of the Apollo Theatre reads like a directory of the most famous people of colour in American history. Here are just a few of these great artists and people: Miles Davis, Big Joe Turner, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, Thelonious Monk, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Sam and Dave, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, The Drifters featuring Ben E. King, John Coltrane, Sidney Poitier, Count Basie and his Orchestra, Nipsy Russell, Chris Rock, Sammy Davis Jr., Dinah Washington, Lena Horne, Ray Charles, The Shirelles, B.B. King, The Delfonics, The Spinners and on and on it goes! Martin Luther King, Barack Obama and Malcolm X all gave speeches from the Apollo’s stage. The names I have listed represent the best of black Arts and culture and yet, this list is just the very tip of a very great iceberg.
I will end this post with two final points. The first is that those who manage the Apollo Theatre today do so under the auspices of an organization known as The Apollo Theatre Foundation. The mandate of the A.T.F. is to not only preserve the building as a performing arts space for artists of colour, but to help take the legacy of the Apollo Theatre and the cultural lessons that can be found in its history and bring those into the mainstream of today’s cultural conversations. As one aspect of accomplishing this mission, the A.T.F. has agreed to be part of a network of educational initiatives known simply as the Master Class Programme. The Master Class series encompasses many types of professions that pair industry experts with students and apprentices. However, there is one Master Class programme that was designed specifically through a collaboration between the Apollo Theatre Foundation and NYU and their music and theatre arts departments. For a few years, the A.T.F.’s “master teacher” in this course was singer/songwriter Pharrell Williams. The idea behind the course was that Pharrell, as he is simply known, would use his vast knowledge of the music industry and the recording process to help mentor a select group of NYU performing arts students. I mention this because one of my favourite YouTube videos of all time came as a result of Pharrell’s Master Class series. I want to share this video and the story behind it with you now. In 2017, the class was assigned a project in which they had to take an original song from the earliest stages of writing all the way through the process of recording it using professional studio equipment. In this video that I will share with you, the class is presenting their finished recordings, one by one, to Pharrell with the expectation that he will provide professional feedback. The student whose turn is featured in the video is a young lady, unknown at the time, called Maggie Rogers. Rogers is now an award-winning indie-folk singer whose career was launched from this video in much the same way that all of those Amateur Night winners had their careers launched from the stage of the Apollo Theatre. In any case, in this video, Maggie Rogers is a shy, unassuming young student. But the second her music begins to play, it is apparent that she has a legitimate hit on her hands. The song she plays for Pharrell is called “Alaska”. It is excellent. Pharrell knows that it is excellent right from the get-go. The two of them have an interesting dynamic all throughout the video because Rogers is truly shy and humbled to be in Pharrell’s presence and keeps stealing glances at him to gauge his impressions of her song. Regardless of his reaction, Maggie Rogers bops to her own tune while Pharrell smirks to the camera. It is an authentic moment of game-recognizing-game. In the end, Pharrell lauds her performance and the rest becomes history. However, what is also noteworthy about this clip and why it is doubly impactful is that Maggie Rogers is white,
The whole point of that scene from Do The Right Thing that I had you watch off of the top of this post is that it is one thing to be proud of one’s cultural background, but it is not healthy to build a wall around your cultural worldview and exclude other influences. There is no personal growth available in that scenario. We can clearly see that when we watch Danny Aiello’s character and his open disdain for his black customers as noted in many things such as how quickly he wipes the counter after his black customer has taken away his slice of pizza. The Apollo Theatre Foundation recognized that it is one thing to preserve and promote the cultural history of the theatre, but it is another thing altogether to do so in an exclusionary, blacks-only manner. If the end goal of it all is racial harmony and equality, then one of the mandates of the Foundation going forward must be to bring in artists from other races and cultural groups. Thus their involvement in a Master Class series that is taught by a black performer in Pharrell but done in a racially inclusive environment. I will link to the Maggie Rogers/Pharrell Williams video below.
The Apollo Theatre is open as you read these words. You can book a tour of the facility and/or see a show. The seats are comfy. The environment is welcoming and celebratory. If you were ever to visit the Apollo Theatre one of the things that you would notice is a wonderful mural that adorns one wall as you enter the building. This mural features the faces of many of the famous entertainers that I have mentioned throughout this post. In doing the research for this post I came across an anecdote from Smokey Robinson who, during his first ever visit to the Apollo Theatre as a member of the Motortown Revue, stood before this mural upon the wall. For Robinson, other than at Motown, this mural was the first time he had ever seen black artists like himself honoured and respected in such a way. The mural touched his heart. As he looked at the mural he swore to himself and to those around him that one day his face would be on that mural. In order to be yourself, sometimes you have to see yourself. Representation matters. It truly does.
The link to the official website for the Apollo Theatre in New York City can be found here.
The link to the video for the song ”Alaska” by Maggie Rogers from the Master Class series hosted by Pharrell Williams can be found here. ***The official lyrics video is here.
The link to a video for the song “I Can’t Stand Myself” by James Brown Live at the Apollo can be found here.
The link to a video of Count Basie and his Orchestra at the Apollo Theatre in 1950 can be found here.
The link to a video for the song “Passionfruit” by Drake can be found here.
***As always, all original content contained in this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2024 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com
Such an important part of music history and I learned a couple new things. Your tie in with Do the Right Thing and Alaska was quite well done and as instructive as a Master Class lesson.
Oh Randy….you do go on. 🥰
Another very well written post, Tom. Thank you. I will be reblogging it in the nwar future.
Thank you. Reblog away!
Already done.